I'm not sure exactly where the novel turned from simply shadows to all our darkness -- but it's happened. Suspicions and hinting around has been dropped all together, and now King shows us a boy being carried into the vampires cellar. Now that's pretty freaky stuff, my friends! I like how Straker calls Mark "master" all the while it is Straker who thinks he is in charge.
Houdini plays an important role in Salem's Lot. Mark, who loves monsters and Houdini, has studied Houdini's ability to escape, uses his study to slip the chords and flee. Twice now Mark has chosen not to tell his parents about the Vampires. Once when a dead kid was floating outside his window, and then later after he had been captured. Now, I don't know about you, but when I was a kiddo -- I would have gotten my daddy. He rightly understands that his dad will not believe him. Mark is prepared to deal with the vampires because he believes. Where does Mark's faith in these creatures come from? Comic books, of course. I'm just not sure that if I was kidnapped by vampires I would be able to keep it from my parents once I escaped. I'd at least need to blog about it.
King does a good job dealing with a small town without cluttering the story with too many characters. People move in and out of the novel easily, but the focus remains pretty tightly on just a few characters.
King also resists the urge to give us the Vampires point of view. This makes them more mysterious and scary. He doesn't tell us about their inner conversations, their thoughts, their history. They remain in the shadows and come out only to cause trouble.
There is a lot of plotting in this book. That gets a little wearisome. Each new person the potential vampire killers seek to recruit must be independently convinced, and these scenes are getting a little mundane. The characters spend a lot of time proving to one another what the reader already knows: vampires are among us.
The priest, Father Callahan also believes in Vampires, but not for the same reason Mark does. Mark believes because he is a child, and so the world is more open to him, and because of his comics. The priest believes because he understands that evil really exists. His faith in God leads him to the sure knowledge that there is also great wickedness. Now, importantly, the novel points out that the priest is not a modern liberal priest who might simply go through the rituals without actually thinking evil exists. That is, a liberal priest would see the ritual as having psychological value to us, but no real spiritual power. Callahan believes there is actual sacred power in the rituals.
Mark's capacity for belief and the grown ups penchant for willful blindness (safer that way?...Really?) is one of the many parallels Salem's Lot has with It. This is the beginning of another theme, that of childhood belief versus adult...I wouldn't say doubt, it's more another kind of belief or faith. Based more on a false sense of obligation to the Good Life to and pampering more than it is disbelief. Anyway, it's this dichotomy between childhood belief and the strange pseudo belief of adults that King is still exploring to this day and in past works, most notably Desperation.
ReplyDeleteAs for Father Callahan's beliefs, and this has to do with what I said above about the difference between kids and adults, there's a scene later on where, well I'm not going to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say it's one of those scene where its time for the character to ask himself just what he believes.
ChrisC
I forget, but isn't Straker British? Anyway I always saw his calling Mark, 'Master' as a form of etiquette; 'master' is a term for a boy, a younger version of 'mister' if you will.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, just a shout across the pond.
ReplyDeleteFrom one Catholic to a Baptist, Happy Easter, Reverend.
ChrisC
He is risen!
ReplyDeletebut Passover first. . .